Dino-Musings

I know I have been sort of remiss in posting lately... but I have been writing, I swear!

About a month ago, I had a piece published in the Hartford Courant about my latest addiction, the online quiz site called Sporcle. You can check out the piece here.

And today, I had a piece published on a cool site called The Faster Times. Described as "a new type of newspaper for a new type of world," The Faster Times attempts to redeem the dying art of great journalism. Really, an impressive site, with a great mission and some great content.

This week, the Faster Times folks were generous enough to publish something I wrote, a piece entitled "When Did Studying Dinosaurs Get So Complicated?" You can check out the article (and my goofy mug) here.

The "initial shiver of inspiration" (Thanks, Nabokov) for this article came from my nine-year-old son, who has long been a huge fan of dinosaurs. Not that that's particularly remarkable: he is a little boy, after all; he has to love dinosaurs. (I think there must be with some kind of dinosaur chromosome or something.)

Personally, I know I was fascinated by the things when I was his age. But as I read his dinosaur books along with him, I realized something strange has seemingly happen in the past thrity years: we have new dinosaurs.

Hey, I know, I know. How can there be new dinosaurs? They've been extinct for, like, six gazillion years. Then how do you explain all these new-fangled dinosaurs that appeared in my son's books-- dinosaurs I had never heard of before?

Parasaurolophus. Coelophyses. Troodons. And others whose names I couldn't even pronounce. (My son, of curse, had no problem with the names: I remember stumbling over a particularly prickly name while reading a book to him, and he said, slightly exasperated, “Daddy, it’s Compsognathus!”)

So I asked myself, "Where did these crazy things come from, anyway?" When I was a kid, there were maybe five dinosaurs: Tyrannosaurs Rex, Brontosaurus, Stegosaurus, Triceratops, and Pterodactyl. That was it--except for maybe an occasional reference to Diplodocus. Are paleontologists inventing new dinosaurs, just to mess with us?

All that dinosaur angst ended up inspiring the piece that eventually became the one currently appearing in The Faster Times, which is less about terrible lizards and more about the loss of childhood innocence. But I had some other dinosaur-related observations, ones that I ended up cutting from the piece, that I thought I could re-print here. (Ah, praise be the junk-heap that is the blogosphere!)

First off, while writing the piece, I found myself wrestling with one of those overwhelming questions: Why doesn't anyone talk about Brontosaurus anymore? Are you telling me they've not only added dinosaurs, but they've taken one away?

Well, I did some research (i.e. I checked Wikipedia), and apparently, the Brontosaurus was a grown-up version of Apatosaurus, which had been discovered first; thus, the name “Brontosaurus” became extinct.

That Bronotsaurus tangent got me thinking about Fred Flintstone, who loved nothing more than his Brontosaurus Burger after a tough day working for Mr. Slate. Then I started thinking about the Flintstones' bizarre longevity. I mean, they still make Fruity Pebbles cereal and Flintstone Vitamins-- despite the fact that most kids, I'd wager, have never actually seen a Flintstones cartoon.

Think about it: Magilla Gorilla, Captain Caveman, Snugglepuss-- they've all faded from the cultural consciousness. But as long as kids eat breakfast, the Flintstones will live on. Capitalism rocks. (I can't decide if that's a pun or not.)

Final observation that never made it to the final piece: about fifteen years ago, I went to the Museum of Science in Boston and saw a new exhibit for a dinosaur named...Ultrasaurus. And I distinctly remember thinking, “Oh, come on. Now they’re just getting ridiculous.”

I mean, honestly: Ultrasaurus? Doesn’t it sound like a Marvel Comics cartoon super-lizard or something? “An asteroid is careening toward the planet to wipe out dinosaur life as we know it. This looks like a job for—Ultrasaurus!”

Anyway, check out the articles. Till then, enjoy the Bronotosaurus Burgers.

"Make It So!": Jean-Luc Picard and One-On-One Writing Conferences

Sometimes, I wish I could run my one-on-one writing conferences with my students the way Jean-Luc Picard runs his starship.

Who would skip a meeting, after all, with the no-nonsense, chrome-domed Captain of the Enterprise? Who would dare give Picard a “revised” draft that looks suspiciously identical to the one from the week before? Moreover, Picard wouldn’t delicately dance around the black holes in a student’s text; no, Captain Picard gives orders, not suggestions-- orders which he always punctuates with the ominous tag-line, “Make it so.” Granted, Professor Picard’s students wouldn’t gain much in terms of self-actualization, but in terms of a polished finished product, they’d certainly learn how to make it so.

Of course, while it would be easier to run a conference like this, it certainly wouldn’t be better-- for me or my students. But as an English teacher who meets frequently with his students in individual writing conferences, I always thought I could take something away from Picardian pedagogy-- namely, his commitment the so-called “Prime Directive,” which any card-carrying Star Trek fan would define as follows: when a Federation starship visits a new planet, the crew members can observe the indigenous cultures, but they cannot interfere with their normal evolutions. Basically, it’s the interplanetary version of the chaos theory-- the “if a butterfly flaps its wings on Jupiter” conundrum.

When I first started teaching in 1995, I used a model similar to the “Prime Directive” for my writing conferences: I saw myself as a visitor in these strange, new worlds my students committed to paper. And although I praised the things I enjoyed, or asked them to clarify moments of confusion, or perhaps helped them see untapped potential already inherent in their texts, I never introduced anything foreign into these worlds. We were simply having a conversation-- at least, that’s what I told myself.

And yet I couldn’t reconcile my understood role as “observer” with my recurring frustrations with conferencing. If I were truly just observing and conversing, why did I feel discouraged when the students didn’t incorporate our “conversations” into their drafts? Or when they did incorporate my suggestions, why the uneasy self-consciousness that they were pursuing these ideas for my benefit, not theirs? My students couldn’t win-- and because I couldn’t figure out why, neither could I.

Then I remembered my “Star Trek”: you see, the “Prime Directive” almost never worked. The Enterprise crew could never simply observe; their visits always seemed to affect change.

In a similar way, I could see that my comments artificially affected my students’ papers, that the gradebook gave me the power to influence their ideas; as a result, I could never have a true conversation with my students in conference, despite my best intentions and pretensions. Thus, for me, the “Prime Directive” model-- the ideal of instructor as detached observer-- proved just as unrealistic and unproductive as “Make it so!”

Here's the straight dope about conferencing, the plain truth that no English teacher really wants to admit: in conference, we're not simply observing; we're interfering in these worlds. We may try to maintain the illusion otherwise; we may preface a suggestion to a student by saying, “This shouldn’t influence your decision,...” but we can't resist the urge to make comments that can only influence his decision.

This charade manifests itself in other ways as well. For example, I talk about “audience,” but when you boil it all down, isn’t the person holding the gradebook the only one they really care about? Or in conference, I double-talk with comments such as, “Well, don’t do this just because I brought it up...”; but in reality, isn’t that what good students have been taught to do-- listen to their instructors?

The awareness of that power probably means I should abandon the ideal of “conference-as-conversation.” However, I can’t forsake the “conversation” model completely, because the alternative-- the overly-directive, “here, write this down!” approach-- is infinitely less appealing. So where does that leave us?

Somehow, we need to find a compromise: a one-on-one writing conference can’t just be a "conversation"; we need to give something to our students. We need to negotiate a place somewhere in between the two poles of “Make it so!” and the “Prime Directive.”

Some may blast this “compromise” as a cop-out-- that we’re being disingenuous with a student if we appear to be having a conversation when we’re really pushing her to think in a certain way through our leading questions. Perhaps with misleading prefaces such as “I don’t want to influence your decision...,” I am giving my students false sense of choice; on the other hand, I think the alternative-- eliminating choice altogether by saying something like, “You absolutely cannot write about this”-- has far more dangerous implications.

I started this entry with an example from science-fiction, but I'd like to end with an example from science-fact: the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Now, I'm not a science guy, and I acknowledge at the outset that I have a vague-at-best grasp of the whole thing, but here's the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle as I understand it: we can never "see" an electron in its natural state, because the very act of observing it affects it, changes it. There's more to it, of course, but I think this ultra-ultra-ultra-simplification works as a metaphor for what I'm talking about: as teachers, we can't simply "observe" a student text; our very role as teachers affects it. And instead of fighting it, instead of trying to convince ourselves otherwise, maybe we should just accept that fact.

After all, that's something else I've learned from Star Trek: resistance is futile.

TISK (Things I Should've Known), Vol. 1

As with many great things, the idea started on Christmas Eve.

My wife had mentioned that her sister had made a stuffed artichoke for her and her husband to have for dinner that night. And because my wife knows me well and knows that I have never actually had a stuffed artichoke, she proceeded to explain the process of eating one; apparently, you take off a leaf, put it in your mouth, and scrape the bread crumbs off with your teeth.

(Later on in the week, a lively debate ensued as to the prpoer way to do this scraping business: my wife and her family always had the bread crumbs facing up and scraped them off with their top teeth, while my brother-in-law insists that you should actually have the bread crumbs facing down, and scrape with your bottom teeth. An unsolved mystery of the universe, I suppose. But I digress.)

Back to Christmas Eve. As my wife is explaining all this to me, I realize something: not only have I never consumed a stuffed artichoke, I don't think I even know what an artichoke looks like. If an artichoke every mugged me, I'd be hard-pressed to pick it out of a vegetable line-up.

And that's a fault, I decided. Not because I'm going to start eating artichokes, but because it seems that knowing what an artichoke looks like is something I should know-- if only because everyone else seems to know it.

And thus came the revelation: 2010 is going to be my year for learning things I should have known years ago. The simple things. Everyday things. Artichoke kinds of things.

And not only will I learn about these simple things, I'll write about what I've learned in this space, my poor, long-neglected blog.

First, some answers to some frequently-asked-questions about TISK (Things I Should've Know):

How philosphical/ existential are we talking about here?

Not philosophical at all. I'm talking factual information, not unanswerable questions like "Why did I have a girlfriend at home for my first semester of college?"

Does this have anything to do with you turning 40 later this year? This whole thing smacks of "bucket-list"...

It's not a bucket list. I'm not talking about things I want to do, just things I want to know. So don't bother cuing up your Tim McGraw.

Why write about this stuff? Why not just learn about it?

Partly to chart my journey, partly to resuscitate this blog, and partly to help me commit this stuff to memory. Personally, I've always found that the best ways to remember something are to write about it or to teach it to someone else.

If this is stuff hat everyone else supposedly knows, won't it be a little mortifying for you to advertise your ignorance on the Web like this?

Maybe, but it's the price I'm willing to pay for enlightenment.

Um, if it's just factual information posted here, couldn't someone just go to, say, Wikipedia instead?

Absolutely... except in those rare cases where the information is too basic and commonplace for even Wikipedia's standards.

In any case, above you will find a picture of an artichoke. (Turns out I did know what one looks like. Whaddaya know!)

Cross one off the list.

Diamonds Are Forever

So, once again, it's been awhile since I last posted something. Hey, I've been busy. Doing what, you ask? Uh... hmmmm... well, for one thing, I was coaching my sons' baseball team. (Yeah! That's it!)

And, to commemorate the end of the Little League season, I thought I'd re-print (with some minor changes) my very first article for the Courant, which originally ran on October 12, 2003. The piece chronicles my time coaching in Charlestown, Massachusetts, from 1994 to 1998. (Man, that's a long time ago...crap, I'm old.) And, to my knowledge, it's the only baseball article in the history of baseball articles to incorporate, in a meaningful way, a quotation from William Wordsworth.

My apologies to any of my former players mentioned in here, most of whom are now, no doubt, college graduates by now. (Again: crap, I'm old...)

Anyway, here's the piece:

I remember praying for rain.

Call it a ritual; only instead of eating ceremonial fried chicken or wearing lucky underwear, I would pray for a well-timed deluge of the local baseball diamond to delay the infamy of actually playing the game, if only for another day.

Even when cursed with sun, I used procrastination offensively; I spent many anxious dugout minutes constructing mental matrices -- considering the number of batters before me, their approximate averages, and the skill of the other team's infielders -- to calculate the odds of making the dreaded Third Out. Poor attempts to trick time, I admit. And time returned the favor: Things slowed way down on that field -- the walk to the plate, the time in the batter's box, even the trip around the bases when I got to them ("Take that piano off your back!" my coach would yell to me). Yet the fastballs still blazed past the logo on my shirt ...

So why return to the minors 11 years later, as a coach? To redeem my own unheralded baseball career? To beef up my resume or impress women with my sensitivity? Maybe to "prove something" to my father, who was still my hometown's Little League president? Or perhaps it had more to do with my favorite Wordsworth quote, paraphrased: "The best portion of a good man's life are his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love."

Ultimately, I don't really know what inspired my cold-call to the local Little League commissioner, the ample-bodied Wayne Davis, in 1994; luckily, Wayne-O didn't ask.

I'm quite sure Wayne never knew what to make of me. A recent college graduate, I just moved to Boston the previous September. I had no family in the city -- no kids of my own or even any distant cousins. And, as far as he could tell, I didn't excel at or even particularly like playing baseball. But I did have a few things going for me: my own clipboard; three dedicated assistants, Mac, Ace and Jason -- whose cool names, I hoped, compensated for their lack of skill; and, most important, persistence.

We coached for five consecutive seasons. Five years, five annual trips for ice cream and five rosters populated by players of all temperaments and abilities. We had all-stars like the Buhay boys, Danny and Timmy, who seemingly played three different sports at any given time. We had Kerry, the 9-year-old girl who could out-throw anyone on the team, including the coaches. And we had our share of kids like Bobby Stone.

Ah, Bobby Stone (always say first and last name, like Charlie Brown) ... I'm quite sure he prayed for rain. And why not? The kid was terrified of the ball; he hurled himself violently into the dirt on every pitch -- right down the middle, high and outside, didn't matter. Bobby Stone thought everyone was against him, even the coaches. And maybe he was right; we invested so many frustrated practices just trying to keep the boy vertical for his entire at- bat, we almost gave up. But, in truth, I liked Bobby Stone. We needed the naturals to win, but I needed Bobby Stone -- mostly because of my sneaking suspicion that, when I played, I was a bit of a Bobby Stone.

The Bobby Stones notwithstanding, Mac, Jason, Ace and I did enjoy a few successes as coaches. A couple of times, we watched as our team went to first place, once after an undefeated season. With a record like that, you'd think I'd have a few knuckleballs of wisdom to pass on to aspiring coaches, right? In truth, I have a few.

First, always put your name on your glove; with all the post-game commotion, the odds are good someone else will walk off with it accidentally. Don't try to coach alone; you can't juggle everything, and besides, who else will want to listen to your war stories about the unassisted triple play?

Don't argue with the ump; you may think you're standing up for your kids, but you're really undermining the spirit of sportsmanship. Don't have scrimmages as practices; they degenerate too quickly. Concentrate on catching and throwing; at this level, defense wins games.

Don't even bring up bunting.

And that crap about "little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love" -- don't believe a word of it.

Maybe, to my shame, I wanted my acts of kindness named and remembered. And maybe that's why, when I look back on my coaching career, I keep returning to this one spot of time.

It's our second year, after the first win of the season (not too many follow that year). I take aside our spunky pitcher, Ryan Collins -- who brought religion to the team by blessing himself before every pitch -- and privately present him with the game ball. Bursting with excitement, Ryan asks if I have a pen. I don't -- we kept score in pencil --and ask him why.

"I wanted to write your name on it," he tells me, before running off to show his mom his blank trophy. Meanwhile, I remain crouching there by that first baseline, thinking: Of all the times not to have a pen!

By signing that baseball, by cementing that moment through the power of ink, I could have guaranteed that our time on the field would be kept somewhere, preserved. Somewhere in Ryan's bedroom -- maybe on a bookshelf, maybe under the bed, to be uncovered only when he packs up for college, but somewhere -- would remain a baseball with a name on it. And I could live again.

Of course, Ryan Collins wouldn't remember he said that; he probably didn't remember two minutes later, and I think that's precisely what ate away at me that night. I want the instant replay to apply in the minors. And I mean, permanent instant replay. I want the kids we coached to remember their time on the field with nostalgia, not as obligations that fell in between thunderstorms. And, when they do remember their baseball days, I want them to recall their coaches not just as the guys who yelled frantically from the baseline to get the ball back to the pitcher. I want them to show up on ESPN someday and mention their former coaches by name. But, in a simpler way, if they grow up, get good grades, go to college and just end up as good people ... well, I want to take a little bit of credit for that, too.

And I know that's unfair. I vaguely remember my own Little League coaches as nice-enough guys, but none of them affected my life in a lasting manner. And yet, I somehow assumed my coaching experience would work differently. We spent our time telling them to get their gloves down when stopping a ground ball, to lift the bat off their shoulders, to run past first base. Somehow, from that, they were supposed to learn, "Don't do drugs, drive carefully, be good to each other."

The four of us -- Mac, Ace, Jason, and I -- always said that one of the best parts about being a coach is the distance: your responsibility to these kids ends with the last out. Yet I found myself referring to them as "my kids," as if we had anything to do with them when a bat and ball wasn't in the vicinity. In truth, I was just someone who told them where to go next inning. I had to give them back.

To rescue me from complete self-absorption, Mac once offered: "Is it about whether they'll forget us? The question is, will we ever forget them? No way."

And this has comforted me. And so, while some more accomplished Little League veterans get ready to do battle in the upcoming World Series, I'll be remembering that impromptu post-game practice when we stayed with Ashley and used a Wiffle ball and bat to help her get over her fear of hitting. Or that season-ending loss, when Steven came over to give me a hug, as tears crushed down his disappointed, befreckled face. Or that 1994 championship final, when Bobby Stone planted his feet in that box and swung the bat, connecting ...

Five years in the minors. Five summers, with the length of five long winters. Five years, five rosters, and a few insights. Don't yell at the ump; you don't want to be remembered that way. Put your name on your glove. Make sure they step on each base.

Oh, yeah. .. and always have a pen handy.

George Lucas, Jar Jar, and the End of the Innocence

I was twenty-eight going on ten.

Ten years ago, in May 1999, I was caught up in the same cultural phenomenon that was
sweeping the nation, but for me, it was something more.

You have to understand: when I was a boy, Star Wars was my life. I bought the figures, play sets, cards, books, comics, soundtracks, puppets, posters, candy—you name it, except for maybe the Underoos.

I saw Return of the Jedi the day it came out, and then saw it at least five more times that summer. I saw all the movies many, many times. In fact, I knew all the movies by heart. (We didn’t have VCR’s back then, so I would actually sneak a tape recorder into the movies, so I could at least listen to it.)

In my young and oh-so-innocent estimation, George Lucas, the lord of all things Star Wars, was an unqualified genius—and a kind and generous one at that: after the saga seemed to conclude with the death of Darth Vader in 1983’s Return of the Jedi, George promised “prequels”—three more movies, three more adventures filled with great stuff like the Ice Planet of Hoth, the Millennium Falcon, and (my personal favorite) Boba Fett the bounty hunter.

So a year went by, then five, then ten. Finally, in May 1999, sixteen years after the last Star Wars movie, George Lucas offered his legions of fans the dream come true: Star Wars—Episode One: The Phantom Menace.

I didn’t know what to do with myself. I bought my tickets a week before and took the day off from work on opening day. And when the lights went out, and those familiar trumpets blared John Williams’ iconic score, and the words Star Wars, in big, yellow letters, filled the screen, it didn’t matter that I was twenty-eight, married, and somehow charged with teaching the nation’s youth. No, at that point, I was a ten-year-old kid again, feeling the Force flowing through him.

Then a terrible thing happened: I actually watched the movie.

Was it the worst movie I ever saw? No. But it was nothing I had expected or even could have settled for. It seemed George Lucas and Co. were so wrapped up in their new-fangled, computer-generated special effects that they forgot to, you know, write an interesting story.

Instead, they reduced the once and future Dark Lord of the Sith, Anakin Skywalker, to an annoying kid.

They offered up a mind-numbingly elongated desert chase sequence, complete with a goofy, two-headed sports announcer.

They created a potentially cool new bad-guy, Darth Maul, and then they (literally) took the legs out from under him.

Worst of all, they subjected fans to… I can hardly bring myself to say it… the loathsome, unforgivable Jar Jar Binks.

A computer generated idiot-alien, Jar Jar almost single-handedly brought down the entire franchise. (And considering this franchise also includes the Ewoks, that’s saying something.)

Jar Jar talked like a four-year-old, which I guess was supposed to be cute. It wasn’t. He was kind of clumsy, too, and I guess watching him trip all over the place was supposed to make us laugh. It didn’t. In fact, it was all I could to keep from crying.

I waited sixteen years for the movie event of a lifetime… and I got Jar Jar Binks?

I suppose it was my own fault. Because I had built it up and built it up to such a degree, the movie could never have exceeded my expectations. But how was it possible that it wasn’t even in the same universe as my expectations?

I’ve actually come to appreciate, over the past ten years, the irony associated with the prequels. At their core, the first three episodes— the plot-challenged Phantom Menace, the inconsequential Attack of the Clones, and the overstuffed Revenge of the Sith—warn against the danger of unchecked power. And, in a bizarre way, that’s the story of George Lucas as well; he became so powerful, no one had the guts to tell him that his ideas were getting increasingly lamer. In the end, the all-powerful Emperor Lucas, seduced by the dark side of his own hype, was not, in fact, a genius—just a schmuck who got lucky.

Looking back ten years later, I can see that Phantom Menace truly marked the abrupt end of my rather prolonged childhood. Few experiences could have topped the high I felt sitting in that theater on the opening day of Phantom Menace back in May 1999. And few could match the disappointment I felt, two hours later, when the movie was over, and my childhood, I realize, was too—irretrievably lost, in that galaxy far, far away.

It's Been Awhile...

Yeah, I know I haven't posted in a bit. In my defense, though, I did write something intended for this space a couple of weeks ago; it just ended up in the newspaper instead.

Here's the deal: my sons, who are in third grade, are playing basketball this year. They've been playing in this league since they were in kindergarten, but this year things got much, much more competitive. There's shouting, name-calling, swearing, and even near-brawling.

And I don't mean the kids. I'm talking about the parents and coaches.

Over the course of this season, I've seen a coach throw down his clipboard after he didn't like a call; parents and coaches mercilessly riding referees (who, incidentally, are just teenagers); coaches blatantly playing favorites and doing anything to win.

And I've heard stories, as well. Stories about coaches actually scouting other teams. Stories about a coach calling another coach an "a-hole," right in earshot of the children. (I'm censoring here; he didn't.) Stories about a coach who got so angry about a call, he and the ref nearly came to blows.

Did I mention these kids were in THIRD GRADE?

So I decided to write a piece about all this for my blog, which I called "When Coaches Lose Perspective, Kids Lose More." But before I posted it, I showed it to my wife to get her thoughts. I don't always run my blog posts by anyone, but this was one was different, because I was being critical of some people in the community; we still have to live here, after all.

Not only did my wife like the piece, she suggested I send it in to the Hartford Courant. She has a good sense about these things, so I took a chance. I figured if they didn't like it, I could just publish it myself.

That was a Tuesday. On Friday, the editor called and said he was going to publish it. On Sunday, February 8, the piece appeared in the Opinions section of the Courant under the headline, "Only a Game-- Until the Adults Suck the Fun Out of It."

I had concerns that the subject matter wasn't particularly original, but the piece definitely generated some great conversation. Even people I hardly knew or didn't know at all sent me e-mails and messages to my Facebook account and even hand-written letters to my high school. A woman who works at my sons' school stopped my wife and asked if she was married to the guy who wrote that piece in the paper. And the feedback was all good (a welcome change from the feedback I got for my Kid Rock article from last July).

Everyone had a story to share, about an incident at a local game involving overzealous parents or an obsessive coach. Everyone agreed that things get too competitive too soon.

And I was even able to take my sons to basketball without getting beat up by the coaches-- which either means they didn't read it, or they read it, but didn't know I was the guy who wrote it, or they read it, knew I was the guy who wrote it, but didn't think I was referring to them.

Here's the great lesson I took out of this whole thing: people still read the newspaper. I've heard a lot over the past couple of years about how newspapers are becoming extinct because everyone gets their news online. That's hooey, I say. People are still reading; they're still sitting down with their coffee and Corn Flakes on Sunday morning and flipping through the paper. That's comforting to me. (So sayth the guy who's writing a blog.)

The Sweater Resurgence of 2009

This winter, if you've noticed your kid complaining a little more about the chilly temperature in school, don’t go hating on your superintendent. He or she is just joining the club.

According to a 2008 study conducted by the American Association of School Administrators, 62 percent of superintendents surveyed have already resorted to “altering thermostats” as a way to reduce costs during this economic downturn.

Now, some may regard this trend of turning down school heat a sad sign of the times. Me, I welcome it, as another step in the Great Sweater Comeback.

“Comeback?” you ask. “When did sweaters ever leave?” Well, as a high school teacher, I can assure you: sweaters have fallen out of favor among adolescents. And I mean way out of favor: not only do many teenagers claim they don’t own sweaters, a disturbing number don't even seem to know what sweaters are.

After an informal poll of the sweater-wearing habits of the students in my school, I was able to divide teenagers into the following categories:

(1) Students who deride sweaters as Nerd Uniforms.
(2) Students who don’t mind sweaters but prefer “hoodies” (“sweatshirt,” in teen lingo). Said one young man: “If I’m wearing something heavy, it better have a hood. It’s like sitting on a couch without a remote—it just feels awkward.”
(3) Students who claim they don’t own sweaters.
(4) Students who believe they do wear sweaters, when in fact, they’re wearing sweatshirts.

I don’t know what to say about the first two categories; I may not agree with them, but—hey, it’s a matter of taste. The third and fourth groups, though, baffle me. Students who don’t own a single sweater? Could it be possible? I work in a pretty affluent town: do you mean to tell me these kids’ grandmothers didn’t buy them sweaters at some point? (Actually, I’m guessing Grandmas are buying sweaters, but the kids—indignant they didn’t get an iPod, Guitar Hero game, or a Lexus—immediately banish them to the back of the closet.)

Even more bewildering to me is the sizable percentage of students who can’t distinguish a sweater from a sweatshirt. Is the truth that unknowable? Look, if what you’re wearing has pockets, a hood, and the words ‘G. Unit’ across the front, it’s probably not a sweater.

Now, some may say, “Sweaters aren’t out of style, because they were never actually in style.” Personally, I don’t believe that. Think about all the pop-culture sweater references from just a decade ago: on TV, Chandler Bing tried to do for the sweater vest what the Fonz did for leather jackets; and on the radio, the Cardigans polluted the airwaves with that despicable “Lovefool” song, while disenchanted teens across the nation rocked out to Weezer’s great argyle anthem, “The Sweater Song.”

And a decade before that, Dr. Cliff Huxtable offended millions of Cosby Show viewers every week with his freakish, multicolored abominations.

Who does this generation have? Who are their sweater icons—their Chandler Bings, their Dr. Huxtables? Quite simply, they have none.

In the past, some well-meaning crusaders have done their darnedest to spark a sweater resurgence. Nearly two years ago, for example, school systems in the Netherlands turned down the heat to celebrate Warm Sweater Day (in an attempt to reduce emissions of greenhouse gas). And last spring, an American non-profit called Family Communications Inc. christened March 20th “National Sweater Day,” in honor of what would have been Mr. Rogers’ 80th birthday.

So far, these attempts haven’t done much to turn the tide of sweater apathy among adolescents. But maybe fiddling with the thermostat will finally do the trick.

So, teens, in these trying economic times, I implore you: pull those pullovers out of your drawers. Let the turtlenecks peek out from the dark shell of your closet. Ask your grandfather if you can borrow his classic white button-down—you know, the one with the little green Izod alligator.

Wear a sweater. Stay warm. Start a revolution.

So, yes, turning down the heat in our schools is not ideal, but if these measures help to bring sweaters back into fashion—well, maybe that’s the silver lining. Luckily, in this case, the lining is fleece.